δουλογος: If You Were In Your Coffin Right Now...

I was preaching on Colossians, chapters one and two this past Sunday, and the message that came through was that we are called to [1] know God, and to [2] walk according to His will.

The first thing we need to know about God is we need to understand about God is that our relationship with Him is entirely in Christ, and not brokered by our own righteousness.

The reason that is so terribly important is so long as there is in us a doubt that we are accepted in the beloved, all of our "Christian" service amounts to trying to make God like us by our sad attempts at obedience. It is the easiest thing in the world, and our enemy presses us in this direction, to keep our focus on our own sinfulness such that we never believe that God will *truly* forgive us. We are tricked into thinking that we can't start the Christian life in earnest until we get over this "sin hump" - and so, consumed by the knowledge of our sin, we try to do what God has already done in Christ - reconcile ourselves to God.

When we do this, we are not standing in what Christ has done, but going about trying to establish our own righteousness - and feeling like until we do, we are not fit for the kingdom, or the kingdom work. It is this kind of thinking that keeps Christians in spiritual prison for decades - and for some, they never live in the liberty that Christ purchased for them.

One of the words that Henry the Eight's Lord Chancellor (that rabidly "Catholic" humanist - Thomas Moore) despised in William Tyndale's translation of the Greek NT into the English vernacular, was "exhomologeo" - which Tyndale translated as "acknowledge" rather than "confess". More understood that if scripture were translated thus, people would begin to question the Roman system (confessing to a priest, penance, etc.) In fact, More took great exception to many of Tyndale's translated word: repent instead of pennance; elder instead of priest, etc. A right understanding of scripture, would undermine Rome's power - for if a man should learn that we are to acknowledge our sins and repent, rather than confess our sins to a priest and do penance - why that would certainly take a lot of cash out of the Roman coffer.

I mention that because many of our translations still speak of "confession" - and that word often has some baggage attached.

If we acknowledge our sin - if we agree with God that we are indeed sinners - God is good and faithful to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The picture here is that God cleanses us when we agree with Him that we are sinners. It isn't that we cleanse ourselves, and God declares us forgiven on that account - and yet this is the way the flesh would have us live; and because no matter how much effort we pour into it, we will never be holy enough to purchase forgiveness - we ought to learn that our relationship with God is not brokered by us, but by Christ.

First we get that in our head - that's the easy part - then it works its way into our heart, but only as we stand on that truth and act in the light of it.

If I wake up and I feel a thousand miles from God, and my thoughts are all about what a great failure I am as a believer, how I ought to love scripture more, how I ought to be more thankful, how I ought to love God more, love ministry more, and how my cumulative failure marks me as the worst and greatest of ingrates - I am tempted to either flee from God in my guilt and shame, or to try and "make it right" with platitudes and words that are just as empty as the lack of obedience that lead up to them was - and I feel therefore that I am a hypocrite, and that there is something terribly wrong with my faith - I am probably not really saved, because if I were, I would be filled with joy all the time, and I would always feel awesome in my relationship with God.

But the truth is that my sin has been nailed to the cross, and the writing against me has been taken away. The guilt and shame that I feel are residual, and no matter how real these feelings are - they do not reflect the changed nature of my relationship with God.

There was a beautiful young woman whose face had one unfortunate mar - her nose was deformed since birth. She grew up hating it - and when she was a teenager her parents found the best plastic surgeon they could, and arranged to have her nose fixed. The surgery was a success, and after several weeks in bandages, the surgeon removed the bandages and saw that she now had a perfect face. He brought her to the mirror, and looking at herself she looked away sadly and said, "See! I knew it wouldn't work!"

She had become so convinced of her "ugliness" that even when the surgery was a success she refused to let go of it. We can be like that too. Even though our relationship is now in Christ, and His perfection clothes us - we still respond to God not according to what is new, but according to what is old, and passing away.

I think that those who find themselves in this struggle need to remember that God tears down before he builds up - and to trust that God is, in fact a wise Master Builder - and that He is in fact doing something. God is not in the business of whitewashing over the decay - not in the business of building shiny new additions to dilapidated dwellings - God instead bulldozes and tears down - and that process goes on until we stop trying to build on the old. For some this happens quickly, for most it happens over a lifetime. Many never let God build, because they are ignorant.

Thus we need to know God, know what He is doing, and to --trust-- that He is doing it. He who has begun a good work will finish it - not because of us, and what we do - but because He is faithful.

That is why the work before many of us, is simply to walk in the manner that we received Christ - that is, learning to walk according to the trust that God has done it - and that there is nothing we can add to it.

It is a common struggle, and I like to expose it whenever I can.